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Can't "Put back" from Trash

donawalt

donawalt

Contributor
Original poster
Sep 10, 2015
1,339
667
Has anyone seen this or do you know what's happening? I can "Put Back" anything from the trash! I tried a restart, I emptied the Trash, and even then when I add one file, and then immediately try to "put back" it shows this message, It happens for any file, any file type. What's happening? Thanks!

Screen Shot 2021-12-15 at 4.34.26 PM.png
 
Are the items you're trashing on a network drive? Those are deleted immediately upon moving them to the trash.
 
No, they are local. Thus is an ARM Mac in case that’s a differentiator…and opening trash in finder and dragging them to the desktop works. Just put back fails saying it does not exist. Could this be some permissions issue? I have not fooled with any permissions…
 
Hmm, honestly I was never even aware of the "put back" option (I always simply did COMMAND + Z to undo an accidental delete or dragged from the trash to where I wanted it. Just tried deleting a file and the "put back" option works for me. I do notice that none of the other files that were in my trash had this option, though. How does that work? Does the put back option disappear after a certain amount of time or after a certain number of additional files are deleted?
 
Is anyone else having issues with "Put back"? While I can drag from there to the desktop via Finfer, Put Back does not work for any file type I delete, large or small. I wonder if it's an M1 Pro laptop issue....?
 
You could try to delete the Trash folder from Terminal
rm -r ~/.Trash
and log out. It will be recreated and maybe it will fix the problem.
 
Thanks @bogdanw, I tried this - I had to give full disk access to the Terminal app first but then it worked. I checked, I had 51 files in the Trash. I did this, logged out/in, and interestingly I had 39 then. But I still couldn't put back any file.

So I did an Empty Trash, then deleted a new file (screen capture, file on the desktop). With only the 1 file in Trash, it failed too - "Doesn't exist anymore".

So then, I dragged the file from Trash to my documents. I then deleted the file from my Documents folder. Put Back worked!

So then I moved the file from Documents back to Desktop, and same error - "Doesn't exist anymore". So the problem may be just deleting files into Trash from the Desktop! Does this sound like some sort of permission problem? I never fool with permissions, is there anything I should check or verify? Does this sound like something else that may be the culprit?
 
I did file a big report with Apple with the feedback form in case it's a bug.
 
Create a new user account with admin rights and test to see if it has the same problem.
 
FIXED IT!! I found it Alsop happened on my older Intel MacBook Pro, so it wasn't M1/ARM based. I took a hunch and found this - my Desktop and Documents are in iCloud/shared through iCloud Drive (System Prefs/Apple ID icon/Options... next to iCloud Drive, Desktop & Documents folders). So I unchecked that setting, the re-selected it, and everything worked on both laptops as I did this procedure on each! Problem solved! iCloud Drive settings must have gotten hosed some how.
 
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donawalt said:
FIXED IT!! I found it Alsop happened on my older Intel MacBook Pro, so it wasn't M1/ARM based. I took a hunch and found this - my Desktop and Documents are in iCloud/shared through iCloud Drive (System Prefs/Apple ID icon/Options... next to iCloud Drive, Desktop & Documents folders). So I unchecked that setting, the re-selected it, and everything worked on both laptops as I did this procedure on each! Problem solved! iCloud Drive settings must have gotten hosed some how.
Click to expand...
Brilliant. That simple fix worked for me. Uncheck and recheck "Desktop & Documents Folders". Prior to that fix, I was able to manually drag the files that would not "put back" from Trash to my desktop.
 
Sometimes the “Put Back” button might be greyed out or not working in the following situations:

1. When you select multiple files in Trash
2. When you deleted a file from within an application
3. When you tried to put back a locked file from Trash

However, here are a few methods that you can try to resolve the issue:

1. Try selecting a single file to put back from Trash
2. Try restoring the deleted file from the App
3. Try unlocking the file from Trash then put back
4. Restore deleted file from Time Machine
5. Restore deleted files from iCloud

Hope it helps!
 
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